Essay Sample: Improving Mental Health Through Exercise

When I was eleven I had a friend who played soccer. As the years went on he kept playing until 8th grade. A year before, his dog died. He and his dog were very close and I could tell that he was going through something. He stopped playing soccer, he stopped showing up to school most days, and he had a lack of motivation. He was a straight A student before this and when his dog died his grades plummeted. This is a very common scenario and many people fall victim to mental illnesses. This led me to wonder if exercise has an effect on mental health, or if mental health has an effect on exercise. 

According to Sara Chodosh on Popsci, only 23% of the U.S. population gets the recommended amount of exercise on a daily basis. This is a lot more understandable when you find out that an estimated 26% of Americans 18 years or older suffer from a mental health disorder. What can we do to make people suffering from mental illnesses exercise in order to become happier? 

Problem

Depression and other mental illnesses have proven time and time again to take motivation away from its victims, but we can get people suffering with mental illnesses to exercise in order to release endorphins and increase happiness. According to the New York Times, several studies came to the conclusion that people who work out 1 or more times a week were happier, the amount of exercise someone gets, the happier they tend to be. This is caused by a chemical called endorphins, according to Mrs. Liss, a High School Biology teacher, they are neurotransmitters and they help relieve stress and pain. This natural mood booster could be used to make people suffering from depression happier. The problem is that depression makes people lose motivation, and therefore have a harder time getting exercise. This brings me back to the question of how to make people suffering from mental illnesses exercise.

Depression is a very common mental illness with more than 3 million new cases per year. Depression can be caused by many things including abuse, death or loss, age, gender, and genes. According to a survey I casted, freshmen in highschool are lower on the happiness scale and people who exercise less than 30 minutes a day are lower on the happiness scale. The people who chose “college or other” were more likely to be an 8 or above on the happiness scale. With the information from the survey I can conclude that people who are older, or not in school are happier. However the idea of exercise to help improve moods can be difficult to suggest to people suffering from depression according to Sarah Richards, “But despite experts enthusiasm for the potential of exercise, there’s often little recognition that the very thing that would make you feel better is really, really hard when you’re depressed. Worse, it may exacerbate the hopeless feeling that comes with depression” (Richards). In a small study done in 2017 by a mental health clinic 84% of patients were aware of the possibility that exercise could increase your mood however 52% also blamed there mood for the reason they didn’t get the recommended amount of exercise. This brings us back to the root issue of motivation and how to get around that.

Depression can cause more than just being sad. It can cause insomnia, risk of heart attack, trouble with memory or decisions, increased pain sensitivity, fatigue, and a weakened immune system. Knowing that depression is more than just being sad shows the true effect of depression and how bad it really is. Mental health is very serious and can be set aside in many people's lives but we need to inform people how important it is. According to my survey, people who are rated lower on the happiness scale get less sleep, but it is hard to tell if the lack of sleep caused the lower happiness rating or if the lower happiness rating caused the lack of sleep. So how can we fix these issues using exercise?

Solution

One way we can fix these issues using exercise is by getting friends. We also need to be responsible with what we do with that information. For example, if your friend is having a hard time, ask them if they want to go for a walk but in order to make them want to go say that you will go to lunch after. As long as you are considerate, you and the ones around you will be happier. You can also have them work out with you because they want to hang out with you and it is a good time to do that. We need to make sure that we have a good balance between downtime and exercise. Business Insider says that too much exercise can have the opposite effect that exercise is supposed to have. Exercising too much can cause damage to your heart and other arteries however a small amount of exercise is good for your heart and head. However, according to the Mayo Clinic, physical activity and exercise are both beneficial. They define “Physical activity is any activity that works your muscles and requires energy and can include work or household or leisure activities” (Mayo), and “Exercise is a planned, structured and repetitive body movement done to improve or maintain physical fitness” (Mayo). This means that you might not have to truly exercise in order to get some of the benefits.

A solution to help with depression is to get people suffering from mental health issues to exercise with people that they like, when they exercise and hang out with people that they like they will be a lot happier. We also need to let people who are in a mental health crisis have the resources to help them. When we understand all that depression can do we are more motivated to help stop it. According to a survey I casted, the majority of people exercise for a sport. So if we can get more people involved in sports, we might be able to improve mental health in highschool students. According to a study done by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public health found that walking for 1 hour or running for 15 minutes a day reduces your chance of major depression by 26% (Robinson). This piece of information shows that we should not only reach out to people who might be suffering but also people at an increased risk of depression whether that is due to genes or a recent loss of a loved one.

Call To Action

Our call to action is reaching out to people and asking them if they want to go on a walk. This way we can help the people around us improve their mental health. We also need to spread awareness about the harsh effects of depression and other mental illnesses. If more people know about the severity of them, more people will want to help. I encourage you to reach out to people that are close to you in order to get them to exercise if you think they might need a mood boost. If you are having a hard time trying to motivate them you can start small with push-ups while watching TV or a walk around the neighborhood. While exercising may not completely erase mental illnesses off the earth, it is a good start in trying to fight them.